


here's half of forever in my hands

by constellation_composer



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bisexuality, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Growing Up, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, If You Squint - Freeform, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, Polyamory, They're all bi, ambiguous setting babes, and i never tell you how old they are, and the 70s i guess, i love him )):, it's not very intense it's ok, it's set in the 80s, nat and lukas are so gone on mads he's just an idiot, or where they live, so have fun with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellation_composer/pseuds/constellation_composer
Summary: It was natural. It was beautiful.It all came back to them.--or: Matthias grows up with his two best friends, and finds there's something better than summer in their eyes.
Relationships: Belarus/Norway (Hetalia), Denmark/Norway/Belarus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	here's half of forever in my hands

**Author's Note:**

> yes ? this is so bad and i'm so tired and i just needed to write them i don't know why . have fun
> 
> Denmark: Matthias/Mads  
> Norway: Lukas  
> Belarus: Natalya

_Let the thunder sound its drum  
Let a louder chaos strum  
Scrape your knees and learn to run  
The sun can’t burn us when we’re young_

_The sun can’t burn us when we’re young…_

\--

[19 of July, 1978]

Matthias tumbled out the back door with a hasty, “Bye, Mum!” and his shoes half on. He hopped awkwardly for a moment, tugging at the laces until they ended up in some haphazard kind of sense, and scrambled through the gate without bothering to lock it. There was no physical path through the woods, but the familiar trek was easy to follow, and if he tripped twice over the familiar fallen logs then. Well. That was no one’s business but his, now was it? It only took a couple of minutes, and then he had reached the fence. The old wood dug into his hands like metal. His feet made easy friction against the slats as he heaved himself up and over, a practised motion that had him landing on the other side in just seconds. The yard was empty, but the back door was open, so he bounded up the porch steps and strolled inside.

“Mads!” Lukas came skidding around the corner from the living room as soon as Matthias’s footsteps sounded against the wood, practically throwing himself into his friend’s arms. Matthias laughed loudly, letting Lukas hang onto him for a moment before they bounced apart. Lukas grabbed his hand tightly. “Come on, come on, you’re late, you’re late-” and Mads didn’t point out that he’d left as soon as his mum hung up the call because Lukas was already dragging him down the stairs to the basement and forcing him to sit on the couch and then shoving something into his hands. “Look at it, Mads!”

Mads’s mouth was hanging open a little. “Woah…” He stared down at it, wide-eyed, and then up at Lukas. “Is it hooked up? Can you play? What games do you have? Can I try it? Can I please try it?” and then they were both talking over each other, almost yelling, their words tumbling against each other in some kind of cacophony.

“Boys!” Lukas’s mum appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and their mouths snapped shut. “Quiet,” she reprimanded, but she was smiling. Mads was still practically vibrating. “Matthias needs to be home by eight, so you’d better get in some good time on that thing, alright? I’ll send your dad down to hook it up,” she said, and the boys cheered loudly, instantly back to their chaos. “Quiet!” she said again, but they didn’t seem to hear her, so she just shook her head and headed back upstairs. Her husband was at the table, bent over a crossword, and she tapped his shoulder as she passed.

He sighed heavily as he pushed his chair back and resigned himself to another afternoon of listening to Lukas wreak havoc in the basement. “Atari time?”

She laughed. “Atari time,” she agreed, and he groaned but went with a smile on his face.

Matthias didn’t get home until eight-thirty, but he burst in with hands flying, babbling on endlessly about graphics and monsters and how God, he could do that forever! and his mum just handed him his dinner and listened to him as he went on and on.

\--

_Voices lift the thunder strong  
Fires burn the sunset wrong  
Fields all flood and rocks run down  
But rain can’t drown us when we’re young_

_Rain can’t drown us when we’re young…_

\--

[2 of August, 1979]

“Do-” Lukas cut himself off as if thinking. Mads cut a glance over at him, but said nothing, because even he knew when it was better to let Lukas collect his thoughts. “Do you reckon love is ever real?”

Mads had heard all sorts of things about Lukas. He knew people called him callous, called him rude, called him a weirdo. Called him _psycho_. Lukas never flinched when people whispered about him, just kept up a stone face and kept walking, walked until he walked straight into Mads and that stone crumbled apart and he grinned. Mads liked his grin.

(People talked about Mads too, called him names and tossed him glances and made those jokes. Those stupid fucking jokes, and God- he hated them. He hated them all.)

Mads had heard all sorts of things about Lukas, and he didn’t believe it, because he knew Lukas better than any of that. But he didn’t think Lukas wanted to hear that right now, so instead, he just shrugged with one shoulder and kicked his legs back and forth. It was getting dark. (Close to ten now, probably, but Lukas rarely went home before ten these days. Mum said it made her nervous, him all alone in the dark woods at night, but Lukas just smiled charmingly and told her, “It’s alright, ma’am, I know it like the back of my hand,” and he’d always been ok, so she let him go off with a crease between her brows.) The lights from the house poured out into the backyard, reflecting off the water of the pool. It danced on Lukas’s face; he looked sort of otherworldly. He always had, really, with his sharp jaw and soft brows and delicate features, the way his nose crooked just slightly now after he broke it in a fight with Arthur in the schoolyard; his hands were small and his fingers were long and when he tilted his head, the curve of his neck was smooth and almost unnervingly white, like marble. “I love you,” he said, and Lukas laughed through his nose.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Mads shrugged again. “Isn’t it?” he said, his voice quiet and half-caught in his throat. Lukas’s gaze was heavy as it slid down his profile. “I love you.” He kicked his legs and watched the water of the pool part around them, thick and refracted. “I love you and I love Ber and I love my parents. I love Abel. I loved Emma last year and I love her now.” He didn’t know exactly where he was going with it, but he just kept talking and Lukas kept listening and his eyes kept boring into the side of Matthias’s face. “And, like, Ber loves Timo and my mum loves my dad. And like, it’s not the same love! But it is, isn’t it? I love you. And you love me, and you love your brother, right?” Lukas nodded, almost imperceptible. “Yeah. So that’s love, and everything else is love, and just… love is love? So I know love is real because I love you.”

Lukas was silent for an achingly long moment. The water lapped against their legs. “Ok,” he finally said, and nodded decisively. “I love you too, Mads.” And the world was tiny again, just the two of them, and even when Lukas whispered, “I think my parents are getting divorced,” then Mads just hooked their pinkies together on the concrete and watched the lights dance across the inky water like falling stars.

Lukas slept over. The moonlight lit his skin up like marble, and Mads laid awake in the cramped twin bed to watch him. He laid awake all night, and all night Lukas held his hand.

\--

_Stars can crack the night to pieces  
Earthquakes start up for no reason  
Ice will burn as suns are freezing  
But pain can’t hurt us when we’re young_

_Pain can’t hurt us when we’re young…_

\--

[1 of January, 1981]

Matthias tackled Lukas onto the couch, yelling incoherently in his ear, and Lukas yelped and shoved at him but let himself be attacked. His arms wrapped almost absentmindedly in a grasp around Matthias’s chest and he held him close, hands crinkling in the back of his shirt in a tight grip. Mads laughed, but he didn’t move.

It wasn’t a big party. A girl from school had invited Matthias, some pretty thing he had tutored in maths once or twice, and he’d brought Lukas along without second thought. The girl had greeted them with identical nods, small but kind, although her face hardly lightened. She wasn’t one for smiling. She was funny, though, or at least Matthias thought. The party was crammed into her basement, the door open and people spilling into the backyard. There was yelling and splashing from the general direction of the pool.

“Glad we came?” Mads asked, his voice a bit sleepy. Lukas snorted. Held him a little tighter and made eye contact with the girl who’d invited them. She was across the room, watching the two of them arrange their legs comfortably, the barest hint of a smile on her face. She gave him a wave before she turned away, and her hair turned silver in the dim light, and Lukas allowed himself something like a smile.

“Glad we came,” he confirmed. Matthias’s breath ghosted over his neck and he watched the hemline of Natalya’s skirt flutter through the shadows and somewhere in the space between those two things his heart started beating out of time.

\---

_You and me, baby  
We’re never too old  
You and me, baby  
We’ll always be fools  
You and me, baby_

_Yeah, it’s you and me_

\---

[25 of September, 1983]

Matthias had heard all sorts of things about Natalya. People said the same things about the two of them, Lukas and her. Called them crazy, called them cold, called them freaks. There were rumours that made Matthias sick to hear, things he couldn’t even really comprehend. He had heard that Natalya was a sicko, was a psycho, that it was best to keep away. That she had a knife in her backpack, that she kept a hit list in her pocket. Someone had muttered something just the other day, said “You heard her dad died? She’s psycho, I bet she killed him,” and God, Mads had wanted to punch him.

Luckily, Lukas was there, and he had gone right ahead.

It had been a while since Lukas jumped on someone like that- he used to do it almost constantly when they were real little, nine and ten and eleven, dumb schoolyard tussles that were fight and forget (he’d confessed to Mads somewhere along the line that he hated winning fights, he hated hurting people, said “I don’t know why I do it, Mads, I’m just so angry, I’m so angry all the time-” but he hated losing because God, what a blow to his pride, and then he’d cried and they never spoke of it again.) but this wasn’t like that. Somewhere in the space between twelve and thirteen they’d all gone shooting up in height, turning from chubby-cheeked little rascals into gangly hellions that were all elbows and knees and sharp mouths that were snapping and then were splitting because somewhere between twelve and thirteen they’d gotten strong, and Lukas’s fist had snapped the guy’s head back into the floor and the guy’s palm had driven so deep in Lukas’s stomach as he pushed him down that he thought the handprint might be imprinted on his spine. There’d been shrieking, yelling, hands pushing through a crowd and wide eyes, watching as blood spilt out across the linoleum floor, and Lukas had been screaming at him and whoever it was had been screaming back, a mix of what sounded like four languages between them, their voices tackling each other as much as their bodies, and Lukas had punched him hard enough that the whole crowd heard the crack, and then-

And then Natalya’s hands had hooked around Lukas’s shoulders and she’d heaved him back, pulled him into her hold. He’d leant back into it, sort of sagging, breathing hard; his face, though, had hardened into stone. The guy had been sprawled on the floor still, holding a hand over his bloodied nose, and he’d stared up at them in a kind of shocked silence. Natalya’s chin had nestled itself on Lukas’s shoulder to stare down over it, both their faces cold and empty, blood buried under the fingernails of the hand pressed over hers on his chest. Their eyes were chilled.

It had taken five seconds for the guy to run.

So yes, Matthias had heard things. But it always came back to how well he knew them; it always came back to how much he loved them; it always came back to them.

It came back to days like this. “Oh, come on- Matthias! _Matthias!”_ Natalya was trying to sound stern, but Mads was laughing and he looked so happy and she couldn’t help but crack a small smile. “Come on, you bloody idiot-” he just leaned back further, holding the pencil farther away. “Mads!” He jumped to his feet, holding it up above his head.

“Can you reach it?” he asked, barely getting the words out through his laughter. “Grab it, Nat, come on-”

_“Mads!”_

From the couch, Lukas glanced up from his book, fighting down the twitch of a smile. “Come on, Natalya. Just grab it,” he intoned, sounding bored just for the sake of riling her up more. Sure enough, she whirled around on him, pointing an accusatory finger and spluttering for about ten seconds before huffing and crossing her arms, glaring between the two of them. It would have been scary if Matthias was capable of being scared of Natalya.

It always came back to them.

\---

_Time will skitter on above  
Clocks will break with weight  
Of everything that’s not enough  
But life can’t kill us when we’re young_

_Even death can’t kill us when we’re young_

\---

[4 of May, 1984]

Maybe Mads was the psycho. Maybe he was the crazy one. Maybe he was sick, or insane, or a creep. A freak. Maybe he should never have been born. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be here. Maybe he was fucked in the head well and truly. Maybe he was a monster.

Or maybe, and it was the worst thought of all- maybe he was just jealous.

“Mads, are you ok?”

He almost laughed, because if he thought back too far, he could remind a time, age six or seven or eight or nine or ten or eleven, before his parents split, before he shut off so harshly, before the marble turned to stone, when Lukas would have tossed an arm around him when he asked. Would have held his hand, would have leant on his shoulder. He almost laughed, because it was funny to imagine now, and he almost cried, because he ached for it so badly that he wanted to be sick.

He was sick. He was sick of himself.

“Matthias,” and he hated how soothing her voice was. He jerked his head up from where it’s buried in his hands and forced a smile. They were standing there like they didn’t know quite what to do; they probably didn’t. They’d probably never seen Matthias cry. He didn’t think anyone had, aside from his mum and Ber and that one time Emma had walked in on him sobbing in the supply closet at school. Natalya and Lukas were ceramic and Matthias’s tears were stone, and he couldn’t stand to see them broken by what he could control. So he kept on a grin; he kept out a laugh; he kept pushing on. What else could he do, anyway?

Natalya is latched onto Lukas’s arm, both hands curled around his elbow and her cheek pressed against his shoulder. He was holding onto her. He was leaning into her. Their marble faces were wrinkled in concern in the slightest, the way they never were, the way they never should be. And Matthias was watching the couch, just an outsider on something he could never have, and he was sick of himself.

“I’m ok.” He ran a hand over his face but kept his smile on. “Just stressed, I think. Gotta get my mind off everything. Wanna go to the arcade?” Lukas poked Natalya’s nose when she wrinkled it and she swatted his hand away and he leant down and kissed her.

And Matthias was sick for it, but he stared anyway because they were beautiful. They were breathtaking; they were exquisite; they were marble statues and he, as he thought with wry exhaustion, he was a smudge of coal along their delicate splendour.

But it still came back to them. It always came back to them.

\---  
sometimes there’s no music.

\--

[19 of July, 1984]

Matthias threw himself onto the couch, letting out a long, loud sigh and letting his head fall back, closing his eyes. A foot nudged his knee. He didn’t move. “Mads.” Lukas kicked him again. “Mads, come on. Turn on the television.”

“‘Turn on the television,’” Natalya mocked, her voice cutting but danced through with amusement. “You sound ninety years old.”

Lukas scoffed. “Maybe I am. Don’t discriminate against vampires.”

“Mhm. Sure, darling.” Natalya’s weight settled next to Matthias on the couch, and he instinctively dropped an arm around her shoulders to tug her close. “Vampires are meant to be beautiful though, aren’t they?” Her warmth curled up into his side. Her head was rested against his chest, against his heartbeat. Lukas settled on Mads’s other side, hooking a knee over his friend’s and settling against his shoulder, reaching across his chest to play with Natalya’s hair.

“You’re mean.”

“Only to you,” she replied sweetly, and Mads snorted. “Shush, angel.”

“Yeah, _angel,_ ” Lukas drawled, and Natalya smacked him over the head. Mads laughed again.

“Never, sweetheart,” he replied. The teasing tasted like poison on his tongue, but it made Natalya laugh, and that was more precious than anything he wanted. He wanted her like the sky wanted the sun the morning, but he needed her to be happy. He needed them to be happy.

Lukas patted his thigh because it was the closest spot, a tiny smile of his own making an appearance. Matthias’s pulse jumped. He felt Natalya shake with another sudden laugh and remembered her head on his heart, so he launched into rambling, hoping to distract her.

“Hey, I heard there’s a new movie coming out-”

\---

[25 of July, 1984]

They went together.

\---

_You and me  
We’re immortal, baby  
You and me  
Yeah, we can’t get hurt_

_You and me and our invincibility  
That’s sixteen, baby  
That’s sixteen_

\---

[26th of November, 1984]

Natalya didn’t get nervous very often. Not visibly, at least. Her poker face was unrivalled, but when she got nervous- really nervous, the kind she couldn’t hide- then her nose would twitch and her fingers would tap along whatever was closest. She would shift from foot to foot like she was unsteady, biting her lip, and bring one small, pretty hand up to cover the bottom half of her face.

But it didn’t happen often, so Matthias found it pretty distracting when he was ringing Emma out at work and Natalya was in the aisle behind her, fidgeting anxiously. He finished Emma’s purchase and let her linger there for a moment longer- sure, Abel was a good friend and it was weird to hang out with his little sister, but Matthias had always had a liking for her and she had always had a liking for his sense of humour, so they fit well together.

As Emma vanished, Natalya sidled up in her spot, leaning over the counter. She was wearing that turtleneck Matthias had always liked on her, a deep indigo colour that made all her features soft. Her hair was curled slightly, which was unusual, and she had on the lipgloss she only wore for dates. Mads narrowed his eyes at her playfully. “Hey, Nat. Where’s Lukas?”

The corner of her mouth quirked up slightly. “I was thinking of calling him later,” she admitted, and Matthias raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He shrugged. “You’re dressed up. You don’t normally do your hair if it’s not for a date.”

“That’s true.” Natalya’s fingers tapped nervously on the counter. “That girl who just left. She looked familiar.”

Matthias shrugged, glancing back at the door. “Maybe. That’s Emma. Abel’s little sister.”

Natalya hummed. “She’s a year younger than us?”

“Two.” Mads fought the urge to lean over and kiss the crease away from between her brows. “Why do you ask?” She pursed her lips momentarily and then shook her head.

“No reason.” She put both elbows on the counter and leant forward. “Hey, you’re almost off.” He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes. “Let’s get ice cream.”

She was wearing the lip gloss she only wore for dates.

Matthias tried not to read too much into it.

\---

_Let the thunder sound its drum  
Let a louder chaos strum  
Scrape your knees and learn to run  
The sun can’t burn us when we’re young_

_The sun can’t burn us when we’re young_

\---

[6 of June, 1985]

It all came back to them.

Lukas was sprawled on the dock with his eyes closed, head on Matthias’s thigh, letting Natalya run a hand through his hair. Natalya had her head leant on Matthias’s shoulder, humming softly, some song he only vaguely knew. Matthias’s fingers were absentmindedly tracing over Lukas’s cheek.

“You know you get freckles in the summer?” he asked, and Lukas’s eyes slid open, staring up at him.

“Do I?”

His voice was… odd. It wasn’t as detached as usual; it was thick, sort of, like the humidity of the hot lake air had caught in his chest, and Matthias found himself having to swallow hard around the lump in his throat.

“Yeah.” His voice came out quieter than intended. “You always have. You got more when we were little, but-” he gently poked at one on the side of Lukas’s nose. “They’re still there.”

“Oh.” Lukas shifted. Natalya’s hand in his hair had paused, her eyes tracking up to stare at Matthias’s profile. Lukas’s voice was lower when he spoke again, rough in a way that made Mads’s blood run a little hotter. “Do you like them?”

Matthias’s voice was strangled. “Should I?”

There was a long moment of silence, heavy and slow and swirling around them, the thick sunlight of late afternoon ensaring them like honey. Lukas pushed himself up, his movements languid. Matthias had to swallow hard again as he tilted his head, the marble of his throat drawing his eye because Lukas was artwork; Lukas was incredible, and Matthias couldn’t breathe.

Natalya spoke up next. Her voice was dragging with something seemingly halfway between anxiety and amusement. “I like them.” She leant in to press a kiss to a freckle just below Lukas’s eye. It was just a short brush, and then she was leaning back against Mads. She was leaning her head against Mads’s neck, and he couldn’t breathe again.

Lukas gave her a small smile for half a second before his eyes slid back to Matthias’s. “Do you, though?”

He didn’t know what he was meant to say.

Apparently awkward silence wasn’t the right answer, because after holding his gaze for what felt like hours (ten seconds at most, maybe, but aeons fit into those ten inconsequential seconds and turned everything upside down) Lukas huffed and muttered, “Oh, fuck this,” and Natalya laughed under her breath, and Mads almost asked what was so funny, but he didn’t get a chance, because Lukas put his hands on his shoulders and pulled him in for a kiss.

Oh.

It was a kiss that tasted like the sunshine they were sitting in, one that flooded his whole body with a warmth he had never even fathomed. His hands came up on instinct, cupping Lukas’s face, and Natalya’s hand ran through his hair, coming to rest on the back of his neck, and it felt like he’d been painted in the sunset, like he’d been caught in a falling star, like he’d been flooded with the nighttime sky; like a thousand inexplicable, amazing things all at once, all bound together in a simple kiss on a simple afternoon. It was remarkable. It was like touching God, but in the most natural of ways, like coming home. It was inevitable, he got to thinking somewhere in the fuzzy mess of his head, it was always going to happen, but now that it had happened he had learnt how transcendent the ordinary could be.

It was natural. It was beautiful.

“Yeah,” he managed as they pulled apart, because he couldn’t find much else to say. “Yeah, I like them.”

Lukas hummed, poking his cheek. “That’s good. I like you.” Matthias’s face almost broke from his grin.

Natalya huffed. “You promised,” she whined, and Lukas flapped his hand at her with a shushing noise. “Luke! You promised you wouldn’t hog all his attention-”

“It’s been like thirty seconds?”

“That’s too long-” and in a fit of courage that he hadn’t known he could manage, Mads turned his head, catching Natalya in a kiss. The angle was awkward, but she shifted quickly, pulling him in, and he had to go through the whole mindblowing reel of simple perfection all over, and by the time she had pulled away he was certain he would never gather his thoughts again. They were circling around all hazy, all sort of disconnected, just centred on the two most important people in the world.

It all came back to them, he decided, and he kissed them again, just because he could, because it all came back to them. The three of them.

And god, the sunshine felt good.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading buddies aslnksdnfklgr sorry it's bad i just . chucked some words onto the page . i am so tired . god, im so tired. i want nap . i take nap now


End file.
